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Watch the emotional moment a guitarist is reunited with his stolen Les Paul after nearly three decades
The guitarist’s two daughters presented him with a priceless gift for his 50th birthday – his long-lost Gibson 1981 Les Paul Custom.
Credit: elisethalman/TikTok
Just as Paul McCartney has been reunited with his stolen Höfner bass after a 50-year search, we’ve got another guitar reunion to tug on your heartstrings. After nearly three decades, a guitarist has been reunited with his long-lost Gibson Les Paul for his 50th birthday.
Stolen 27 years ago, the guitarist’s daughters made it their personal mission to track down the Gibson 1981 Les Paul Custom for their father.
One of the daughters explained the situation earlier this month on TikTok. “27 years ago my dad had his prized possession 1981 Gibson Les Paul Custom stolen out of the back of his truck,” she explains. “For his 50th birthday we wanted to finally reunite him with his guitar.”
The daughters were on the hunt for nearly five years, arduously searching for the Gibson’s serial number month after month. “We finally found it sometime last April-ish,” the daughter says. “After keeping it a secret from our dad, he finally got his gift yesterday.”
The TikTok captures the beautiful moment in which the father is presented with the Gibson. “Shut the fuck up,” he immediately says when he sees the case, only to be hit with another wave of emotion as he clicks it open and discovers his beloved guitar. As he tearfully asks how his daughters found it, you can’t help but feel caught up in his giddy, astounded joy.
@elisethalman to all the people who helped us pull this off, thank you 🥹❤️ #gibsonguitars #guitar #guitartok #fyp
The daughters go on to explain why their father is left so speechless by the Gibson. “A year ago, Dad asked us to plan this party, and within 10 minutes we’d texted each other like, ‘We just have to find this fucking guitar,’” one daughter explains, before jokingly adding “don’t lose it this time!”
The other daughter allows more insight to the guitar’s significance on a Reddit post. “The guitar was [my dad’s] everything, he recounted the 600-700 hours he spent playing the guitar in the marines. Sitting in the barracks, going out and doing shows, he played the thing all the damn time,” she writes. “When it got stolen he said he genuinely felt empty as if he had lost apart of himself.”
“After years of searching on consignment websites I found the guitar last April,” she goes on to explain. “The natural finish made identifying it quite easy even though the guitar had been lost longer than I had been alive. Many of our friends and family donated to help us buy the guitar back, even some of my friends who had never met my dad. My sisters and I kept the guitar a secret until his 50th birthday party yesterday.”
“My dad is at the foundation of all the music I hold very near and dear to my heart. It was an honour to reunite him with the guitar he genuinely had accepted that he would never see again,” she concludes.